We all know our primary colors are red, blue and yellow, and we know they can come together to create secondary colors, like purple! While this may sound like an art class, red, blue and purple are in fact different cyber security approaches as well as highly skilled teams. These teams are responsible for protecting your organization’s most critical assets from unseen attackers.

To kick off this week’s blog series, we’ll be taking a look at the life of red team members and how you can begin or enhance your cyber security career with well-rounded training and certification prep.

What does the red team do?
Red team members are responsible for finding weak points and mimicking an attack within controlled, natural environments. This is a similar practice to holding routine fire drills and practicing dealing with dangerous situations.

While it’s not the same as a fire drill, red team members play the role of an attacker or competitor to provide feedback to a company. The role of red teams typically includes pentesting, exploit development, and or web and mobile application pentesting. Additionally, they have been known to explore vulnerabilities or potential angles of attack, finding areas of risk and reporting findings back to the company.

Red teamers bring the heat and show companies where their assets can be broken into, so it’s important to think outside the box. The ultimate goal of a red team is to present openings in a business and provide a report of weaknesses so organizations can fortify their cyber security and attempt to invest in their defensive system through offensive means.

What are red team careers?
Cyber security is a growing need around the globe, so much so that the White House put out a call to action, urging some of the biggest companies in the world to invest in their cyber security efforts after an announcement that there would be trillions of dollars put into cyber security development. As more value goes into the field of cyber security, more high-paying jobs will become available.

Red Team Operations Lead
These leaders establish processes and programs which investigate cyber security efforts of an organization and apply technical expertise in executing covert system operations. All offensive efforts, such as measuring performance quality, establishing goals, and planning resources fall under the Red Team Operations Lead.

Cyber Red Team Operator
Operators in the red team focus on driving technical solutions and tend to lead offensive tests. This role also specializes in IT security controls and works with operation centers to improve cyber attack detection.

IT Security 
This role is instrumental in identifying new techniques to counter threats and ensure company awareness in the cyber realm. IT security teams run penetration tests and report potential vulnerabilities back to the company in the hopes that these findings will lead to better detection and prevention measures.

How does INE help?
INE provides hands-on labs and training material that allow you and your team to practice penetration testing and exploitation tactics in a risk-free setting. Our in-depth solutions give you a chance to try out your offensive practices before you need to execute in business critical scenarios.

You can work through our offensive security training with our Learning Paths in addition to the virtual, interactive labs and quizzes. Learning Paths are designed to help you keep track of your course progress and see what is left to master. Learning Paths cover various red team topics such as exploit development and penetration testing. Regardless of the topic you choose to focus on, our experts have carefully designed the information to ensure clarity and an engaging experience.

Our virtual labs, quizzes, and instructor-led training videos have been designed with your success in mind and will help you master the keys to penetration testing, exploit development, as well as web and mobile application penetration testing techniques for a well-rounded training experience. 

Learn more about INE Cyber Security training today!